


you and I and a flame make three

by vtn



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:24:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Serenity crew takes on a number of refugees when the feds discover a rebel stronghold.  River learns how to say you're sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you and I and a flame make three

River is surprised by the way that Jayne has taken to the baby. And she likes being surprised, because it's something that doesn't happen often — not with the way she usually knows things before they're supposed to be known or to happen. But there he is, surprising River, poking his finger into the bassinet and laughing up a storm when Adam grabs on and won't let go.

 

Sometimes Jayne even lifts Adam up in the air and makes him laugh. When Adam vomits on Jayne's shoulder, Jayne just says "_bèn háizi_" with a smile and goes to change his shirt.

 

***

 

"Pull my finger," River says to the baby once, trying it out, wondering why it works so well for Jayne, and Adam just starts crying.

 

***

 

"Did you have a big family?" River asks him once. She's partially distracted by steering the ship, while Mal is relaxing. It helps to have something to distract her in a conversation.

 

"Still do," says Jayne. She waits for more information, but he's finished.

 

"All I've got is me an' Simon," River muses, checking _Serenity_'s trajectory. "I mean, we have parents, aunts, uncles, cousins...but they're very far away now." She makes a slight adjustment to her heading. "Very far away."

 

"Gorramit," Jayne says. He's been playing a handheld game and has apparently just lost. And then, "Gorr _am_ it, River! You know what I'm  _thinking_ even, so why're you asking me so many gorram questions?" 

 

"I don't know  _everything_ ," she mutters under her breath. Sometimes, after all, it's better to find things out the normal way, same as everyone else.

 

"Yeah, but you want to," says Jayne. "Creepy, crazy girl," he mutters either under his breath or in his mind—River can't tell—as he walks away.

 

***

 

River's not dumb—she can see she's walking on eggshells. She can see that Zoe gets tense when she comes too near the baby. So she hides, as best she can, peeks in the door to listen to people talking and feel at least a little bit like it isn't her fault this family has a big hole torn out of it.

 

She doesn't pay much attention to the conversation, the small talk, the discussion about the baby's eating habits and how he can crawl all by his lonesome—until she hears her name.

 

"I don't know why Mal just leaves River on this ship," says Jayne, "without Simon to deal with her in case something _happens._ Especially with the kid around." River feels her face turn red, and then white.

 

"You watch what you say," says Zoe.

 

"Yeah," says Jayne, "Who knows who might be listening." He smiles sardonically and takes his soup off the stove. Drinks a spoonful right out of the pot, while it's still boiling.

 

"_Wúqíng de sīshēngzǐ_," River whispers. She wants to hit him, wants to wrench the pot of hot soup from his hands and pour it over his face, make him burn and cry. But she shakes off the urge. It's something she's been getting better at doing.

 

"She's _fine_," Zoe asserts. "Mal wouldn't let her be copilot if she wasn't, and you know that. Only difference between her and you is I _know_ not to let you run around unsupervised." River doesn't understand. There's a world of difference between her and Jayne, as far as she can tell. Jayne is a cruel, stupid man. She's a brilliant young woman with lots of heart. She's just—confused some times. 

 

"Only difference between me and the crazy girl, that's real kind of you." He puts his hand too close to the hot end of the pot handle, draws back, sucks his finger. Ha ha, River thinks, we had the same thought. " _Only_ difference between me and her is—"

 

"How is the baby doing?" River says, swinging into the kitchen, her skirts flying out behind her. "Hello, baby Adam." Jayne curses under his breath and stomps off.

 

***

 

They're ambushed smuggling parts out of a rebel stronghold and River is shooting next to Jayne, and as she grits her teeth and tries to ignore Simon's fingers smashed up against his eyes in the background she focuses on Jayne — on the way he is staring down his rifle like there is nothing else in the world and how every time he shoots his mouth opens a little bit and his shoulders are wet with perspiration and he 'kills them with mathematics' too because his body does the mathematics instead of his head like how with River she sees everything in a calm display but for him there's no calm there's just blood and he doesn't destroy worlds he is a protector

 

—she doesn't like destroying—

 

***

 

Serenity is full of people, full of beating hearts and throbbing brains, throbbing with thoughts. Sometimes the people talk to River. Because they don't know, she thinks. She has a lot of trouble formulating her answers when she's trying to talk to people. There are too many angles from which to attack the question of "Hello, how are you?", much more so "What is your name?" and "So you're the co-pilot?" Sometimes she has just taken to ignoring them. She sticks her fingers in her ears and pokes her tongue out of her mouth, like when Simon is bothering her.

 

( At least Simon leaves her alone now, when she wants to be left alone; doesn't dog her with questions about how she's doing and whether she's sleeping all right, or try to stick her with needles. She knows she can find him in Kaylee's room if she's looking for him, barefoot and curled up with the small-town girl with the dirty hands and the colorful skirts. )

 

The people are getting their dirty, sticky hands all over the ship. Children with unwashed faces and long hair. The old and the sick, coughing, stumbling, bleeding. It's a lot to handle. River sometimes hides, dangling from the rafters where they can't see her, just to be alone with her thoughts. She concentrates on setting up and solving modular equations. It occupies enough of her brain that she doesn't have to think about other things.

 

***

 

Here is a way, River concedes, that she and Jayne are alike: Jayne also doesn't like having too many people on the boat. (A space-ship, a boat that flies: a joke.) Everyone else goes around talking to the refugees and helping them. Mal is constantly checking on others, trying to be in control and aware of everything. Simon is fixing the ill and the wounded. Kaylee is charming everyone in her usual way. Zoe needs company to quench her loneliness, Adam held tightly to her chest wherever she goes. Even Inara leaves her capsule to mingle with the old veterans, brewing tea and helping in the kitchen.

 

But Jayne is in his room, polishing his weapons, alone.

 

"You've unloaded and reloaded that rifle three times now. It should shoot fine," River offers, trying to be helpful.

 

"Gyaah!" Jayne springs up from his bent position, holding the empty-barreled rifle cocked and ready to shoot. Then he rolls his eyes back into his head and puts the gun down with a sigh. "How'd you get in here? Scared me half to death."

 

"I came through the hall from the kitchen," River explains. "There was a little boy and his mother in the way, but I was able to ask them to move to the side. If that's what you're asking."

 

"It ain't," says Jayne. "Wish she didn't wear that dress around the ship. I don't wanna have to do anything that's gonna get pretty-boy on my ass."

 

"Who?" River asks, furrowing her eyebrows. "Which dress?"

 

"What?" says Jayne, staring at her in bewilderment. Oh. She wasn't meant to hear that. And oh. He meant her. And her dress. The shimmery green one she's wearing now, with a swooping V for a neckline. And when he said—

 

"Don't," he says suddenly, taking on a tone of voice she hasn't heard from him but for a few times. "Look at me, _fēngkuáng de biǎo zi._" River gasps, the harshness of the words stinging her ears, and looks at Jayne's face. "Don't do that. Get out of my room and get out of my head. A man needs his privacy."

 

"I'm sorry I disturbed you," River finds herself saying, the words unfamiliar on her lips and teeth and tongue. Jayne laughs. River turns around and shuts the door.

 

***

 

When Simon comes by later the door to her own room is locked. She doesn't open it, just calls "Privacy!"

 

***

 

"River?" says Mal, after Serenity gives a particularly sharp heave.

 

River looks up from the steering equipment, her concentration broken. She bites her lip.

 

"Everything under control there?" he asks her.

 

"Control requires a delicate balance," she replies. "Multiple variables, all with the ability to affect one another. You change the value of one, and instantly, all other values are affected as a result."

 

"Good point," he says, and walks off shaking his head.

 

***

 

River talks to a little girl with a homemade pinwheel. The girl says her name is Xiuying, and that she's never been in the black before. River watches the little wheel spin under Xiuying's tiny breaths, watches it wobble to a stop.

 

"This can be improved," she says and takes it from Xiuying's hand. "The wing tips aren't aerodynamically sound." She runs her hand along the back, shifts the paper wheel back and forth on its pin. "The pin is not holding the wheel straight, either."

 

She takes it and is going to go back to her room to fix it when she runs into Simon.

 

"Oh, that's interesting. Where's that from, _mèimei_?" he asks her.

 

"From Xiuying," River says.

 

"Where is Xiuying?" Simon asks.

 

River spins around, points at the little girl. Xiuying is crying, rubbing her red eyes with her fists.

 

"Did you take it without asking?" Simon asks.

 

"It needed to be improved. I was going to give it back," River explains. "Simon, you can see that the wing tips—"

 

Simon taps her on the nose. "Apologize. Give it back and apologize,  _mèimei_ . You need to say you're sorry when you do something wrong to someone, even if it was an accident." 

 

River swallows, approaches Xiuying with the pinwheel held out in her hand delicately, stretched as far in front of her as possible.

 

"I'm sorry," she says, the words like stones in her mouth. Disliking even as she does the feeling of letting something go, imperfect, she hands the pinwheel back to the runny-nosed child. Xiuying wipes her tiny hands on her brown linen dress and takes the toy back from River, her tears abating. "I'm sorry," she says again. "Sorry." River backs away from the child carefully, not letting the heels of her feet touch the floor.

 

"I'm sorry," River says to Simon.

 

"Huh?" Simon says. "You don't have to—I mean, you didn't even—"

 

"Sorry you had to take care of me for so long. Sorry I called you  _yúchǔn de hóuzi_ —"

 

"River, you were  _four_ —"

 

"Simon, you  _remembered_ ." Simon shuts up. "Sorry I came into your room without asking. Sorry I laughed when your examination scores were lower than mine in the same year. Sorry I bit you when you tried to give me medicine. Sorry I made you buy me that green dress. Sorry I—"

 

"River, please don't do this." Simon crushes her into a hug. River stands with her arms at her sides and then hugs Simon back. "You don't have to apologize for all those things. You're my baby sister. Sometimes..." Simon swallows. "Sometimes people do those sorts of things for each other. Brothers, for their sisters."

 

"Sorry for apologizing, Simon," River says, and then she squeezes him with her arms harder, because it seems like the right thing to do.

 

***

 

Mal is not River's big brother.

 

"I'm sorry I made an error in calculation that required a delay of five minutes while on course to the rendezvous in Woodend." She thinks a bit harder. "I'm sorry I endangered your crew while I was wanted by the Alliance."

 

"What's this all about, River?" Mal asks, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's all behind us now. Now why don't you worry about not doing anything you're going to have to apologize for later, all right?" He touches her head with his hand and ruffles her hair a little. Which is something. Mal doesn't usually touch her.

 

"Simon says you should say you're sorry when you do something wrong to someone," she says. "Even if it was an accident."

 

"Sometimes things don't have to be said," Mal says.

 

"Sometimes they do," says River.

 

***

 

River knocks on Jayne's door.

 

"Yeah, who is it?"

 

"I'm sorry," says River.

 

"River?" A few moments pass, and Jayne opens the door. He's wearing no shirt. There is a lot of hair.

 

"No, no, too much hair!" River says, and puts her hands over her eyes. She peeks through her fingers so she can see his face. "I'm sorry I cut you with a knife," she says.

 

"You'd better be," Jayne says, his voice almost like growling. "That took ten stitches to get fixed. I don't like stitches."

 

"I'm sorry I watched you when you were cleaning your rifle three times," she says.

 

"O...kay..." says Jayne, his brow furrowed, a confused expression on his face. "Looks like the crazy girl found herself a new kind of crazy," he mutters. "Now what's all this sorryin' about, because I don't have a lot of time for sorryin'."

 

"Simon said I should apologize to the people that I have hurt," River says. "Even accidentally." She braces herself for the hair that she knows to expect now, and she takes her fingers down from her eyes.

 

"Well," says Jayne, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "Your brother Simon's an idiot."

 

"Technically, Simon is a genius," says River. "Based on IQ testing. Which is an inherently flawed system. Based on my own observations and what I have calculated, my brother Simon is extremely intelligent. His critical thinking and spacial skills are beyond normal human capacity." She smiles. "He is also an idiot."

 

***

 

There's an outpost called Hill Town with room for the refugees. The night before they make contact, Zoe wheedles Mal into throwing a party. River stays in the back rooms at first, watching Zoe warm up a bath for Adam in the kitchen sink.

 

"Can I help?" she asks. Zoe looks at her narrow-eyed and then sighs.

 

"Sure," she says. She lowers Adam into the water, where he looks up with big, bright eyes. "You can get some soap and wash his hair."

 

"What if he cries?" River asks.

 

"Then I'm right here," says Zoe.

 

River gently rubs soap into Adam's scalp, softly runs water over his short curly hair until the suds are gone. Adam reaches up a tiny hand. River lowers one of her own. Adam grabs her finger and yanks on it, locking them in a tug-of-war until River falls back in a shower of bubbles and laughter.

 

***

 

In her blue dress River is a river she is a stream she is an ocean she is a waterfall, she is spinning in front of the fire and turning into steam, she is everywhere in the air, she is on the dewy foreheads and the lips of the dancing guests. She is Xiuying's little pinwheel spinning spinning wobbling on the stick pin not holding the wheel straight wingtips canted not aerodynamically sound but doesn't need to be fixed, sorry, sorry, she isn't broken she doesn't need to be fixed.

 

Her brother's hands are warm, Kaylee's hands are warm, she leaves them to warm each other's warm hands. Jayne's eyes are like crosshairs, he's locked onto her, holding her in his sight, wish she didn't wear that dress around the ship—

 

"Do you want to dance?" she asks him.

 

"All right, River," and the spinning world and her spinning thoughts wobble, wobble, wobble, to a stop.

 

***

_and once this spark met kindling, forgets its gentle ambling / becoming heat, becoming steam, becoming luminescent glee / atoms splinter, sparkling, alive and nimble symmetry_

**Author's Note:**

> AMS April-August 2010. All comments are appreciated, especially concrit. All of the pinyin is from Google Translate and may be entirely wrong, so please don't hesitate to correct me on any errors or awkward phrasing. Title and ending quote are from an Akron/family song titled, appropriately enough, "River".


End file.
